Get best of the week

Maxim Dubinin: "In OpenStreetMap you need to do what is important to you, and not try to" save "the project as a whole."


Maxim Dubinin is the founder of the GIS-Lab project and the director of NextGIS, which develops the product of the same name. Probably, his name is known in Russia to almost anyone associated with the GIS topic. Who uses OSM data, what quality they are and why they are not appreciated - he told all this in an interview.

- How and when did you meet OpenStreetMap?

- It happened in 2008 when I worked in the USA. I don’t remember what led me to OSM. Maybe I was looking for some data? In general, somehow I came across this project and it immediately interested me. Especially the fact that you can edit the map yourself and take the data itself.

- What caused this? Why did he make such an impression on you?

- There was no admiration for the card, it was completely empty. There was nothing to watch. I was fascinated by the very idea and architecture of the project - a free map that anyone can draw, and then use it the way he wants. You need to understand that by that time I had been professionally engaged in GIS for 8 years and the topic of open data was close to me, there was always not enough data. And I immediately realized that this is an incredibly cool thing with great potential. Naturally, I could not pass by and decided to take part in this.

- What was the OSM community then?

- Incredibly active, it was a time when the foundations of the project were laid and its rules were formed. People talked on the forum, wrote articles on WikiOSM, developed related tools, etc. It was very lively and interesting. These processes are happening now, but it seems to me that at the moment the project has already stabilized and its own traditions have emerged. Less vivid discoveries and breakthroughs - there is a systematic filling of the map with data, development of tools. Then everything was first and again.

- Who was mainly in the community then?

- People related to the IT topic. I don’t remember others. Then it was diluted a bit by tourists of different stripes, but initially it was still IT specialists. The subculture was narrower than now.

- Remember your first edits? What did you draw?

- In addition to minor changes, I began with the fact that now they do not particularly approve of automatic import. I wrote a converter for ArcView and let's ship a less-than-perfect coastline around the world, which was generated from satellite images. Before that, one might say, it was not there. Something that reminded her from afar. For example, the entire Taimyr Peninsula then is almost five points connected by one line. I loaded it in much more detail: there were bays, islands, etc. It could already be used at least somehow.

Then there were no clear rules regarding such imports, and therefore I didn’t break anything special. Most importantly, the data source was open and licensed with OSM. But despite this, of course, I flew for it. Not everyone approved of my initiative, but there were those who supported me. For a long time in the ranking of cartographers, I took first place in terms of edits.

- Continue to map?

- Unfortunately, not much, now I am only editing POI from a mobile phone. What I’m teaching my son too: we correct the addresses with him, we go by car - we fix the gas station. He seems to like it.

- Maxim, you are one of those who in Russia systematically promotes the topic of GIS technologies. Your GIS-Lab Websitestill the "must have" of almost any gis-technologist. And you have been doing this for almost 20 years. Why are you doing this?

- I thought a lot about this topic and came to the following conclusion: I never engaged in any promotion. And still I don’t understand why they are trying to rank me as a camp of evangelists. I was just always personally interested in this topic and I tried to figure it out as deep as possible. But my brain is so arranged that in order for me to master and understand some new technology, it is necessary to decompose all thoughts in writing in order. From the side it looks like I'm methodically writing articles and popularizing something. When in fact I’m just developing myself.

The fact that my activity, which still surprises me, attracted many people is a consequence, not an end in itself. I didn’t do anything surprising - I just created a website on which articles of a certain topic are posted and “screwed” a forum to it. That's all. Another thing surprises me. People often say that they sit on the GIS-Lab and study these articles. It's good. But why are there so few who are willing to share knowledge and write something themselves? This always made me very annoyed.

“Why do you think so?”

- Probably because I did not pay enough attention to pushing people to write articles on GIS-Lab. After all, if this is not done, then many experts in their field will fall into thought and show unnecessary modesty to anyone: “nobody needs my article”, “I have a poor knowledge of the topic”, etc. Therefore, there are not as many articles as there could be. But that would be evangelism, it takes a lot of time.

- Why are you so hooked on GIS technology?

- By education I am an ecologist, and by mindset I am a programmer. GIS is an area where ecology and programming intersect. By the way, note that it is ecologists and people who are related to natural resources that are the drivers of the development of geospatial technologies around the world. For example, ESRI- the developer of the famous tool ArcGIS - its full name in Russian sounds as follows: "Institute for the Study of Environmental Systems". Its founder is an ecologist.

With GIS I met in the last century. Somewhere in the late 90s, someone showed me something, even on paper, since computers were still rare, how they combine something, extract something, and this is called GIS. I was impressed.
Then a graduate student appeared in our university, who sat in the closet behind the 386th (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/80386), smoked Belomorian and did something in ArcView 2.0 (https: //en.wikipedia .org / wiki / ArcView_3.x). It was already a full-fledged GIS, in which you could snap rasters and create vector data. I looked at this magic and a light came on in my head - I want to do it. I don’t know why, but I really liked it.

- Your company sells processed data from OSM. How exactly do you “comb” them? How many download them?

- Alas, I can’t share the commercial details that we add described on the site. I can only say that this data is in demand, but this project is not a chicken that lays golden eggs. Its development is hard work, much remains to be done. But now this service allows you to save a lot of time on data preparation. 2-3 mouse clicks and for the price of a couple of cups of coffee you have a ready-made combed design, layers, styles.

- It turns out that with the help of OSM you earn. Although not a lot of money, but still. Does your company contribute something to OSM? Does his data more accurate and more complete?

- NextGIS does not generate data by itself. We develop tools and sell them. As for the sale of “combed” data from OSM, my conscience is clear, since NextGIS is a corporate memberOpenStreetMap Foundation, we are also probably the only company that shares profit with OSM, that is, we support the project financially.

In addition, thanks to my personal initiatives, as well as some members of my team, a lot has appeared in OSM. For example, in due time we organizedthe introduction of the administrative boundaries of regions, later districts. It was a great job, in which about 40 people took part. The idea was born not in the bowels of the RU-OSM community, but on the GIS-Lab forum. I then found suitable official open sources in the form of cartographic tablets drawn with felt-tip pens :). They had to be tied to the terrain, rendered, and only then loaded into OSM. I don’t want to say that absolutely the entire administrative division of Russia in OSM is a merit of this project. I am sure that there are those who, without me, drew some boundaries and continue to improve them, but most of what exists is the result of that project.

There were several more projects during which something was introduced into OSM, for example, with orphanages - we drew them all over the country, withprecinct election commissions - noted residential buildings and put down their addresses. In 2009, we probably carried out the first cartopathy in Russia - we mapped the Moscow district of Strogino, and after that we went to fry kebab and drink beer. Then there were many more different events and conferences related to OSM.

Moreover, we are now in NextGIS trying to launch a new direction - updating or loading data into OSM, as a service. We think that this can be interesting for the network business (shops, cafes, gas stations, etc.) and developers. I can’t tell you the details yet, but we are actively negotiating and the first cases are already outlined. Therefore, we have never forgotten or forgot about OSM. We always think about how to make it better.


First Cartopat


First First Cartopat


Bypass Sheets

- OSM Data - What Are They? It is believed that they are, to put it mildly, raw.

- They are such that they are used by almost everyone, and all over the world. And the person who tells you that his company does not work with OSM at all is either mistaken, or belongs to that small group of people who cannot do this, for example, intelligence agencies. All the rest - one way or another came across them and used. Therefore, when we start talking about the quality and accuracy of OSM data, then I think that in 90% of cases this is pure trolling.

Most people who smartly insistently ask me a seemingly harmless question - “What accuracy is the data from OSM? Can't you name the numbers? ” - they just do not fully understand what they are asking and why. In the context of my work, and it is very closely connected with geodata, this question often does not make sense at all. Why? Because the tasks are different and super accuracy for most of them is not needed. And as soon as people find out the cost of high-quality data sets, they immediately return to talking about OSM. So what's the point of a long explanation?

If you get away from the lyrics and try to answer your question directly, now the OSM data is pretty good. Currently, there are a huge number of different validators and quality control tools within the OSM ecosystem. Something is constantly improving and being brought to mind, recently, for example, the number of settlements has reached 96.3% . This process is endless, and therefore one million claims can always be made against OSM data. But you need to be aware of what you need and how much money you have. There is always a choice: it depends on your financial capabilities. Each task has its own cost and solution.

However, I do not want to say that you need to use only OSM and nothing else. You just need to be adequate and understand that OSM - only expands the possibilities, fills in the niches not filled with commercial or government data.

- Why, then, are many skeptical of OSM?

- Because it is free and easily accessible. When something goes to nothing, people don’t value it. They suspect that it is of poor quality, irrelevant, with a bunch of problems, no one is responsible for this, today it is - tomorrow is not. Suspicions are not always correct, but not groundless, OSM servers periodically go down due to the influx of users, there is a “community tragedy”. But you can get into the glaze with the most official and commercial data sets. Contracts with the supplier, seven seals and the opinion that someone can be held accountable are often nothing more than an illusion. Smart people choose data for the task, paid, government, OSM or even their hybrids.

- Your company is developing a fork of QGIS - NextGIS QGIS. How is it different from the original? Why did you decide to do it?

- It all started with the fact that in 2009 I began to take part in the development of QGIS. A number of tools within this program that are used by millions of people around the world are made by me and my colleagues. Snap a raster? We made this tool. A bunch of modules. NextGIS has copyrights in the core of QGIS. At some point, I realized that my customers want more than just a specialized plugin or tool in QGIS. They wanted stability from the entire QGIS software package and that someone was responsible for the errors (support) that occurred, that is, they promptly eliminated them. So our version appeared.

To put it simply, NextGIS QGIS is a completely reassembled QGIS, in which errors are fixed and there is an additional kit that makes it easier to deploy and support. This approach has its drawbacks, for example, it looks like we are developing slowly and changing versions not so often. But we do not strive for this, NextGIS QGIS is a tool for those who need to go (work stably, get guaranteed support), and not look at the checkers (version numbers and number of functions).


NextGIS Team

- Your company took part in the development of a number of social projects: “ Territory is prohibited ”, “ Topography of terror ”, “ Russian Borders ”, etc. How does this happen: for money or pro bono?

- We always try to take money. Not to make money, but to make a product have a price. Let it be formal, small money, often insignificant for us, but we are a commercial organization, not a charity. Psychology is important here, not the price tag. Our prices for such projects are always much lower than the market. I am becoming more and more convinced that if people pay for something, then they relate to this differently. But I also understand that such initiatives are excellent cases for demonstrating technologies and the opportunity to help good people do something cool and socially important. Therefore, I am always open and happy with such offers.

- Some people think that now OSM is stagnating what needs to be taken, deleted everything and redrawn. What do you think about this?

- Firstly, of course, this is not so. Secondly, nothing needs to be deleted. This is a very loud statement. At a minimum, this is disrespect for the work of a huge number of people. OSM, like any society, is heterogeneous. In some ways, it has reached maturity, in something - not yet. But this does not mean that something is wrong with the project. Growing up is a process that occurs over time and has no end. Therefore, OSM will continue to grow and become more mature.

In OSM, you need to do what is important to you, and not try to "save" the project as a whole, because it is impossible. If something is important to you, you want something to happen as soon as possible, then you need to work on it, you need to deal with it: write articles, try to change something from the inside, eventually join the OSM Foundation Council or some kind of working group. The mechanisms for improving OSM are exactly the same as any state. We often hear that a person got into the system and disappeared. But it is not always the case. Just social processes are quite slow. And you need not speak, but do.

- You mentioned the OSM Foundation Council. But why has the official organization RU-OSM not yet appeared in Russia?

- This is another pain of mine ... At one time, it was I who suggested Ilya Zverev create an informal consultative body that would bring together activists of the Russian OSM community with a view to promoting it in Russia. There were hopes that he would gradually grow to official representation. This is how the RU-OSM Council came about. He did not last long. Why did this happen?

I suppose that those people who ended up in it were probably not fully prepared for this activity. However, I’m not sure that there are many such people now. I think that such things should be repeated regularly until they bring results. Are we reelecting power? Why not update the council of activists and volunteers RU-OSM? If the community is interested, you should try to reproduce it again. Need a new iteration. Maybe to do it somehow differently and it will work?

This I just said about subjective reasons, but there were also objective ones. Then OSM was not yet the de facto standard of what it is today. Then it was believed that this was the lot of geeks. It is now used by everyone, always and everywhere. Also at that time, cartographic activities were licensed. You could not just take it and start mapping. Then OSM in Russia was clearly in the gray zone. And it was better not to shine.

Now the situation has changed, the community has grown, laws have become softer, so perhaps this idea will fall on more stable and prepared soil and will be able to bear fruit.

- Maybe you have some kind of story related to OSM?

- When I was in the USA, I decided to draw as detailed as possibleon the OSM campus of the University of Wisconsin Madison where I worked. My colleagues did not understand why I was doing this, because at that time the university already had a cool card on a flash that was popular then, which was kept up to date.

5 years later. I read the news on Twitter: “The University of Wisconsin is switching to OSM and will present a new campus map ...” I’m watching, but I’ve painted all this! I am writing to this man: “Dude, so I painted everything!” He answers me: “So, who painted this! And we thought, who could it be? ” Imagine, 5 years passed before it shot! It took so many years for the university laboratory to become aware and switch to OSM.

By that time, I didn’t care what they were doing there, whether they would look towards OSM or not, since I left for Russia, but I was very pleased to understand that after a year I was right. In life in general, it very often happens that people only after some time understand what you are offering them or what they are doing right now. So it was with QGIS.

- In conclusion, a simple question: why do I need to participate in the OpenStreetMap project?

- Because participation does not make you a lurker. It’s like a exercise, like brushing your teeth, just spend some time on it, at least 5-10 minutes a week, but do it and you will immediately begin to feel differently, there will be some kind of connection with the project. If, of course, it is important to you. If OSM is just a free data source for you, then take it and pass by to the next source. This is normal. Think and decide: who you are and who you want to be. Participation is right and very easy.


Communication of Russian OpenStreetMap participants is in the Telegram chat room and on the forum .
There are also groups on social networks VKontakte , Facebook , but they mainly publish news.

→ Join OSM!


Previous interviews: Alexander Pavlyuk , Sergey Zaichenko , George Potapov , Vladimir Marshinin , Evgeny Usvitsky , wowik , SviMik , Kirill Bondarenko , Artem Svetlov , Sergey Sinitsyn , Natalya Kozlovskaya , Victor Vyalichkin , Ivan aka BANO.notIT , Anton Belichkov , Elena Balashova , Ilya Zverev , Timofey Subbotin , Sergey Golubev .

More articles:


All Articles